chaiy

Trading bird nest is a lucrative business. What about if you can own the source of bird nest namely owning a swiftlet house? To own a swiftlet house, you can rent an unoccupied house, unoccupied shop lot or build one in the middle of the palm oil plantation for instance. Renting a space may be a cheaper option whereas building a swiftlet house say a double storey structure may cost you RM200,000. The success rate is 3% - 20% which is rather low. Therefore whether or not to go ahead with... Read Full Story

The Health Minister of Malaysia has met with his counterpart in China to discuss the teething issue of nitrite in bird nest. Both sides agreed that there is nitrite content in the natural bird nest cup. A specialist team will be established to look into this matter and set up standards. The Health Minister hoped that the specialist team can complete its standardization and certification in December this year. Malaysia side has appointed the Director General of Food Safety and Quality... Read Full Story

Recently, the Veterinary Department of Johor, Malaysia stated that all the bird nest farmers must register with its Department. To date, the bird nest farmers are reluctant to register, worrying that by doing so will create more problem for them. According to the Veterinary Department of Johor, this step is for its department to control the quality of bird nest. For instance, if the swiftlets at certain area contract certain disease, it can effectively control the situation. This will assist... Read Full Story

Bird nests are only available in Hainan Island, Vietnam, Thailand, Myannmar, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines where swiftlets are thriving. In Hainan Island, due to uncontrolled harvesting of bird nests, the swiftlets are almost extinguished. Most of the caves are now under very stringent control by the state. Cave bird nest are exported through some coastal towns in Southeast Asia. Most of them are quite interesting and untouched by the international tourists. Chumphon of Southern... Read Full Story

Recently, the issue of nitrite in bird nest has been widely dicussed by the bird nest industrialists in Malaysia. This issue has been dangling for about two months. Since the burst of nitrite issue, the Malaysian bird nest industry has suffered great loss. In China, the retailers have taken down the product from the shelves. The relevant departments stop China people from consuming bird nest from Malaysia. The sales dropped by at least 80% since. As the export to China, the biggest consumer... Read Full Story

There has been months since the nitrite issue arised in the bird nest industry. The issue begun when there were plenty of complaints on the consumption of blood bird nest which gave rise to health problem and even miscarriage for the pregnant women. The issue has been complicated when fake government officers were invited to explain the nitrite problem in Hangzhou. This was discovered by the China journalists. Worse still, the CCTV broadcasted a documentary on blood bird nests nation wide. As... Read Full Story

A few days ago, I made a trip to Hangzhou and Shanghai. Before the trip, I thought the weather would turn cold after the mid-autumn festival. To my surprise, it was not true. The temperature was about 25 to 30 degree Celsius. The relative humidity was high. It was like the weather in Malaysia. I felt quite comfortable over that few days. I was told that the bird nest market suffered an avalanche in sales after the broadcasting of blood bird nest by CCTV and the related news by most media... Read Full Story

About one month ago, spot check on bird nests at stores in Zhejiang Province revealed that average content of 4,400 mg of sodium nitrate per kilogram as opposed to allowed cap of 70 mg per kilogram. Following this event, there is rumours saying that Malaysian bird's nests would be banned in China. This created a huge chaos among the bird nest industrialists in Malaysia. On 9 August 2011, the Deputy Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Minister, Chua Tee Yong announced that the China... Read Full Story

It is a common scene that swiftlets flying round and round above the canopy of the trees. Do they flying for fun? Study showed that swiftlets are foraging for food during flying high in the sky. One would wonder if there is anything high up in the sky. Actually, small insects are floated up by hot air in the bushes or jungle during day time. They are plenty in the sky. Unfortunately, we cannot see them by our naked eyes. Swiftlets pick up these insects while flying. Some make the insects into... Read Full Story

Bird nest can be grossly divided into house bird nest and cave bird nest. In East Malaysia, cave bird nests which are harvested from the caves are commonplace. Bird nests have been harvested from the caves for more than 100 years. One of the famous sites is Gomantong Caves. Gomantong Caves is situated at the south of Sandakan Town of Sabah. Due to spectacular view of the caves and the swiftlets, it has been a tourist attraction in Sandakan beside Proboscis monkey. Gomantong Caves consist of... Read Full Story